In 1971, Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, two members of the Systems Analysis office under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, wrote of the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System:
The notion, then, that in some meaningful sense the nation’s military requirements can be determined without considering costs is false. Military requirements, like all other requirements, have to be decided by judgments as to what resources will be devoted to what purposes and what sacrifices of other purposes will be made.[1]
The imperative to make choices in the face of constrained resources, to devote resources to some purposes and to sacrifice other purposes, remains a perennial concern, and it is on this question that The Strategy Bridge focuses in our first series of 2022.
We seek submissions that answer all or some of the following questions. These questions are provided to provoke thought and should not serve as a prescriptive checklist for submissions:
What are the areas important to strategic competition most in need of increased attention and resources for the United States, its allies, or other states...and from where should the resources to achieve that increased attention be taken?[2] In the spirit of Enthoven and Smith, no recommendation is complete without an assessment of the cost.
What are the benefits and risks involved in the proposed re-allocation of resources in the near-, mid-, and long-term?
How and why does a zero-sum re-allocation of resources result in net gains for security and the capacity for strategic competition?
Submissions should conform with our guidelines. Specifically, all submissions should be concisely written and 1000-2000 words in length (excluding citations), and must include appropriate footnotes formatted consistently with the Chicago Manual of Style. Submissions should be scoped narrowly enough to make a complete and meaningful argument. All submissions must be received no later than 12 January 2022, and those submissions selected for publication will appear in early March 2022.
We know our community of readers, thinkers, and writers will have ideas to add to this conversation. So get writing!
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Notes:
[1] Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, How Much IS Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961-1969 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005), 37.
[2] Daniel Lippman, et al. “Biden's Era of 'Strategic Competition'.” Politico, 5 Oct 2021, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2021/10/05/bidens-era-of-strategic-competition-494588.